Established in 1991, the UCLA Terasaki Center has been a platform for research on Japan. Our distinguished faculty, students, postdoctoral fellows, visiting scholars, and the board of advisors have been contributing to the field of Japanese studies for over 20 years.

The Terasaki Center sponsors a vast array of events throughout the year. With its colloquium series, the Center brings academics from diverse fields to UCLA each year. Special workshops and annual conferences bring leading scholars to discuss topics relating to Japan.

Center programs were established with strong support from the local community to promote research and instruction in Japanese studies, with a recent focus on the profound transformations unfolding in contemporary Japanese society.

The Terasaki Center is actively expanding support for faculty and graduate students, building relationships with other universities as well as Japan and Japanese Studies related organizations, and enhancing its role in the community.

UCLA Royce Hall Room 314

Japanese mythologies of the modern and premodern

Operating under the presumption that myths are foundational narratives possessed of a certain broad-based appeal, this conference will focus on the role those narratives play in the construction of political, cultural, and personal identities. While processes of identity-formation have been theorized at great length, less clear are the linkages between premodern and modern myth making. With historical revisionism and neo-nationalist sentiment on the rise in Japan, the manner in which historical myths are constructed, disseminated, and then internalized by individuals or groups is an issue of vital significance. At this conference we hope to address this issue in innovative ways by moving beyond the longstanding division between approaches to the premodern and the modern.

12:30 - 2:30Panel Two: Myth-making and the Post-warJulia Alekseyeva, Harvard University - Anthropological Intentions: The Myths and Fables of Imamura ShoheiBrian White, University of Chicago - Digimythos: Networked Spiritualism in Japanese Science FictionShelby Oxenford, UC Berkeley - From the Myth of Safety to the Myth of Recovery: Advertising after 3.11Masa Murakami, UCLA - The myth of homogeneity in Japan: What is the role of Brazilian ethnic schoolstoday?Discussant: Professor William Marotti, UCLA

2:30 - 2:45Coffee Break

2:45 - 4:45Panel Three: Mythology and Legitimation in Modern and Premodern Japanese ReligionsLaurence Mann, University of Oxford: Rhetorical features of the Engishiki NoritoEric Tojimbara, UCLA: East Asian Buddhism and Japanese Śākyamuni HagiographyParide Stortini, University of Chicago: Demythologization or modern myth making? “Indianism” in the Tsukiji Honganji temple and modernJapanese BuddhismDana Mirsalis, Harvard University: Myth, Spiritualism, and Psychology: Sources of Legitimacy During Ōmoto’s “Chinkon Kishin Boom,” 1916-1921Discussant: Professor Caleb Carter, UCLA

4:45 - 5:00Coffee Break

5:00 - 6:00Keynote Address:Hitokotonushi: The Mythic Career of the One-Word-Lord in Ancient and Medieval Japan Professor David Lurie, Columbia University